


Perdition

by Aryagraceling



Series: Catharsis [17]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Uchiha Massacre, Unplanned Pregnancy, breakdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 21:53:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17630327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryagraceling/pseuds/Aryagraceling
Summary: Haruno Sakura did not ask for any of this. She did not ask for Itachi to come to her. She did not ask to comfort him. She did not ask to bear witness to his decisions in the days leading up to tragedy.She did not ask for his child.Hatake Kakashi did not ask if she wanted his help to cope. Hetold, and she accepted.





	Perdition

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a happy piece.
> 
> Oops.
> 
> AU where the massacre did not occur and everything was fine, until it was discovered they'd been planning the coup all along (timelines? what timelines. Still piecing together backstory because _this was supposed to be a one shot and now look, PLOT_ ). I say there'll be four chapters and there will likely be more, because it is me. But we'll start with four.
> 
> Pls remember to read tags as they update.

Of all the people Sakura expected to see standing on her porch at 2:37 in the morning, Uchiha Itachi was next to last. An Uchiha did not consort with the common people and most certainly did not consort with  _ her,  _ nothing but a simple med-nin. She was certainly underdressed for both the weather and his question of if he could come in. “It’s early,” she whispered, but opened the door regardless. 

He came in with armor dripping, bone-white mask hanging from the side of his head as he just  _ stood  _ there. The ever-growing puddle on her floor was apparently the least of his worries and as his shoulders drooped, he took off the mask and let it drop to the wood with a  _ crack.  _ “I need your help,” he said, not looking back as he spoke. “You see me and do not run like the rest of Konoha. Tell me, Sakura, am I more than an ANBU?”

“I-you-please,” she stammered, gesturing to the wet patch. “What sort of question is that? Of course you are. People don’t run.” She moved around him in the hall and pushed him back a few feet onto the mat, walking to the kitchen to get a towel. “Why are you in my house?”

“I need help.” He shut his eyes and swayed on his feet before leaning against the wall. “You  _ see  _ me, you...I came to you because you’re safe. Tell me you can see more than my mask. More than my name.”

“Itachi?” Sakura took a guarded step forward as he shook his head. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you,” Itachi mumbled. “I know it’s sudden and it’s raining and everything’s...crashing…” He cracked an eye and took the hand she extended toward him. “I think this might be my last chance.”

Sakura’s brow knit as he simply stood there. “Come on,” she said, drawing him into the kitchen. She sat him down and turned on the light to catch the sight of sunken eyes cast to the floor. “I have tea.”

“Thank you.” 

He didn’t speak much as she prepared it. Not much meaning ‘not at all,’ and the silence grew stifling while the leaves steeped. “Why are you here?” she asked again.

“I need a reason,” he said as he wrapped his hands around the cup, shivering slightly. “Please, just...can I ask you to tell me a reason, any reason, that someone could hate the village?”

“I suppose maybe they could be resentful for being told to do something against their beliefs for a mission,” Sakura said. She pulled out the chair in front of him and hazarded a brush of her bare feet over his boots. “Is everything okay, Itachi?”

“No,” he said, voice the barest hint of a whisper before he set the cup down with a delicate click. “But your light was on and I thought maybe you could help take it away for a bit. The...the…” His hand circled in the air before she caught it and held it to her chest. “The mission.”

“Drink,” Sakura urged. Itachi’s lips curled over the rim of the cup as his dark eyes melded with hers, making her feel as if her soul was being dragged from her body before he shut them. “Are you injured? I can heal you, unless you need a hospital.”

“I want you to hold me.” He unbuckled one clasp on his armor, then another, and another until the plating was in a pile on the ground along with his sword and other weaponry. “If that’s okay.” The tea splashed onto the table as his elbow jostled the cup and he clenched his fist. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t--”

“Tell me how,” Sakura said softly. The wind smacked a branch across her window, causing both to jump before Itachi settled again. “You’ve seen me watching, apparently, so teach me, Itachi.” She let out the lungful of air she didn’t realize she’d been holding as he clutched her hand tighter. “You have to know I want to help.”

“I need a towel,” Itachi said. He dabbed at the spill with the corner of his shirt before grunting in frustration, the wet fabric simply making it worse. It hit the floor along with his armor as he stood, chest heaving. “I--”

“Shh.” Sakura turned him around and wrapped around him from behind, attempting to warm him the best she could. “Shh,” she said again, lips brushing over the pale skin of his neck. “You’re fine, it’s fine, it’s just tea.”

“Just tea,” he parroted, hands clamping over her arms. “I can clean it, I can make this right.”

“This isn’t about tea,” she said. “You don’t need to tell me. I know you probably can’t, if you’re still in your gear, but I’m not stupid, Itachi. It’s not about tea.” She sighed as he gripped tighter, black nails beginning to dig into her skin. “Do you want to come back to bed with me or sit on the couch?”

“Couch is fine.” Itachi turned his head just slightly and Sakura  _ remembered _ where the couch was, she swore. The proximity of his lips after so many years had nothing to do with the way her pulse was thundering in her ears. The heat flowing through her veins was nothing but her trying to warm him. “Sakura…” He let go to turn in her arms and brush a stray strand of hair from her forehead as he looked her over. “Help me.”

She nearly tripped over his armor on her way back. “Clumsy,” she said with an uncomfortable laugh. “Though I guess you’re probably used to that with, uh, civilians.”

“You’re anything but,” Itachi said. “You helped me with this, after all.” He brought one of her hands to rest just below his ANBU tattoo, over an old wound she’d stitched after the war. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

“Just doing my job,” she said as they sank down. “No need to thank me.” Her hands inched closer before he reclined into her and allowed her to wrap around him once more. His breath was beginning to quiet, panic over whatever his problem was abating. “I do it for a lot of people anyway, not really anyone thanks me. One time I had to stitch up Genma without any painkillers and he didn’t like th--”

“Please let me be the first, then,” Itachi said. His head fell to the side, cheek pressing against her collarbone as he knit their fingers together. “I want to be a good person.”

“You are,” she said. She rested her chin on his head and looked at the blank TV along with him as he shook his head. “You  _ are,  _ Itachi, I won’t accept any other answer.” 

“I’m not,” he said, and Sakura groaned over a clap of thunder.

“What will it take?”

Itachi’s face turned back towards hers and he was  _ so  _ close now that she barely had time to breathe before he closed the distance between them. His lips were satin and smoke as they crashed into hers, sending her reeling with nothing but his hand winding into her hair to steady her. The taste of a recent cigarette burst on her tongue with all the force of the storm raging outside. 

Her fingers fluttered over his sides before she took his face in both hands and deepened the kiss. “Itachi,” she whispered mournfully. “Stay with me tonight, whatever you need. Don’t go.”

He broke away to nod into her shoulder. “For tonight,” he said, and she did her best not to look at the clock that wanted to do nothing but remind her she needed to sleep. “I have a few days and then I--” he bit the words off with a sharp whine as he buried his face into her neck. “I want to stay.”

“Come here, then.” Sakura inched down, sliding beneath Itachi to let him rest on top of her. Their second kiss was not soul-shattering, replacing ferocity with gentleness and need with a simmering want that drove all uncertainty from her mind. Itachi had come to her, dripping and afraid, and it was her duty to care for him. Her hand splayed over his bare back to press him closer, keep him so flush against her he’d never think of leaving again. “Whatever it is you can get through it, I promise.”

“Not this,” he said. 

She wasn’t going to waste this chance on arguing. His skin was warming, a blush spreading through him as she began to venture down his neck. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” she murmured.

“Yes, Sakura.” Itachi relaxed, second by second, as she worked. He tasted like the storm, all wild energy and chaos as he held himself over her. It was just as addicting as she’d imagined in her bed late at night, fingering herself and pretending it was him pushing her over the edge into the depths of pleasure. “Please don’t stop,” he said when she pulled back to check on him. “I just want you. This. I need this.”

“You have it.” She urged him to sit up and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. “Come to bed, Itachi.” A bolt of lightning outside lit up his face, illuminating for a split second the lines and what looked like terror. “Let me be here for you.”

The hallway was long, too long, and Itachi ended up pressing her against the wall to steal her breath away. Her hand scrambled for the doorknob and they stumbled in, lips locked before she broke to tug her shirt off. “You…” Itachi breathed as she pulled his hands to her chest.

“Forget everything else tonight,” she said, taking the tip of his right index finger into her mouth. She shut her eyes and hummed softly as he let his head drop back. “Focus on me. Focus on us,” she continued. “Allow me to show you what I can be.”

“Lay down,” he said. His fingers dug softly into her hips as he pushed her slightly, helping her settle onto the mattress. The rasp of his zipper was loud in the silence before another clap of thunder drowned out his sigh at springing free. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure,” she said. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you?”

“Almost three years to the day,” he murmured as he climbed to kneel over her. “I came in with a broken leg and the blush on your face when they took my pants off…” His knuckle dragged over her cheek and she lifted up to marry their lips once more. “I’ve seen it so many times since. It’s so beautiful, Sakura, do you have any idea?”

“I thought you barely knew my name,” she said with a quiet laugh. “Uchiha Itachi go for Haruno Sakura?”

“Who else would open their door for a sodden ANBU at three in the morning?”

She didn’t speak, only did her best to untie his hair in response. The band came out easily but the strands tangled under her fingers as she carded them through. “I can think of a few,” she finally said, looking to the side. 

“How many of them watched me lay in a hospital bed and beg for mercy, Sakura?” Itachi asked, eyes growing cool in the dark. He moved his hands to her ribs, caressing the soft skin before taking both nipples between his fingers and rolling them. “How many stayed after their shift to watch me when I was laid out sick as a dog?”

“Just me,” she whispered. He abandoned her breast to tilt her chin back up to face him. “I wanted all of you. Even the sick Uchiha.”

“Sicker than you know,” he muttered before shaking his head and bending to kiss along her jaw. It was fire, his lips over her skin. Each brush of them left her wanting for more with no escape, no way to ease up except to grind up against his thigh between her legs. He groaned when she stuck a hand between them to palm him through his underwear. “Take them off?”

“Get down on the bed,” she said with a soft smile. “You said you want to forget and I can make that happen.” She dragged the fabric down over his hips, over his knees to discard in the pile with her shirt. “You’re so pretty like this, you know. Spread out and waiting below me. I always imagined it’d be me, but--” she drew her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes raked over his form-- “Itachi, I’m going to take you apart.”

The plaintive whine he let out when she bent to lick him from root to tip was music to her ears. It morphed into whispered curses when the took him into her mouth, then to a bitten-off whimper when she began to work him over with her tongue. He wasn’t huge by any means--slim, really, just like the rest of him, and silky smooth as he struggled for control. It was an almost dangerous endeavor, she knew, pinning an ANBU’s hips with their cock in her mouth, but she didn’t want to play any other game tonight. 

He wanted to forget, and she’d made a promise to help. 

Her fingers curled into the waist of her shorts, shoving them unceremoniously down to her knees and delving between her folds with no hesitation. She hummed around his length, drawing out an angel’s moan when her other hand found his balls to cup them gently. “Again,” he whimpered when she squeezed softly. A small spurt of precome hit her tongue and she swallowed around him, reveling in the way he squirmed beneath her. “Again, Sakura, please.”

“I didn’t expect you to beg,” she said with a kiss to the sensitive inner skin of his thigh. “Do it again for me, Itachi.”

“Please,” he said, fingers winding in her hair as he propped himself up on one elbow. “I want you to suck me again, it felt so good, Sakura, I’d do anything--”

“Would you forget for me?”

Itachi froze, then sank back to the pillow. “Yes,” he said brokenly as her breath washed over his twitching length. “I’d forget it all. I  _ will  _ forget it all, just…”

“Stop,” she murmured. Her breasts dragged over him, up his stomach to rest against his chest as she planted both elbows next to his head, grinding against him with her hips. “I want you to touch me. Can you you feel how much I want it?” His hand found her and he huffed against her neck when one finger slipped into her. “Just like that, Itachi. Doesn’t it feel so good? You want your cock in there?”

“I do,” he said. “Let me.”

“Not until I see the darkness fade from your eyes.” Itachi attempted turning his face away, burying it in the pillow, but she forced his eyes to hers. “Another finger,” she requested, and the stress lines faded just a bit. “Whatever it is you’re thinking of, whatever it is you’re stuck on,  _ stop,  _ Itachi. Let it out.”

“I can’t.” He swallowed hard and screwed his eyes shut. “It’s a mission, it’s for--Konoha.” His voice broke on the name and he pulled his hand away to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. “It’s not good. No good, I shouldn’t be doing this.” He sat up abruptly and Sakura immediately pulled away as his body began to shake. “I need to go.”

“You really shouldn’t,” Sakura said. She put a hand on his shoulder--it wasn’t an issue he shrugged it off, she told herself--before going and turning on the light. In its warm glow he really  _ was  _ the sickly Uchiha son. Silver moonlit skin became anemic paleness and the lines cutting across his face were so much more pronounced without shadows pouring across him. She could see the beginnings of his spine as he settled his head between his knees, breathing deeply. “Can you tell me anything about it?”

He shook his head.

“Would you like some more tea?” She couldn’t say she was an expert on comforting but if it had worked for Iruka, Naruto, and Kakashi, tea could work for Itachi too. “I can...go--” she pointed with both thumbs out the door before pulling a spare uniform shirt off the floor to cover herself with. “Itachi?”

“Come here. Please.”

“But--”

_ “Please,”  _ he implored, head nearly touching the mattress as he extended a hand. “I need someone close. Touch me. Please. Please, please, please.”

“Okay, okay,” she soothed, holding both hands out placatingly as she settled in front of him on the bed. “Hey, Itachi? Look at me.” His eyes shot to hers and she carefully put her hands on his knees. “I’m here with you and you’re safe. Whatever decision is out there does not matter  _ here.  _ Inside of this apartment you are just Itachi. You don’t need to worry about ANBU or horror or...sickness?” she guessed as he coughed.

“Mission,” he said. He crawled into her arms, pulling her down so his back was against her chest as he shook. “I don’t want to do it, Sakura, I should have never dragged you into this thing. I’m sorry.”

She simply clung tighter to him. The blanket crumpled beneath them and she would’ve loved to move him to pull it over them, but she settled for grabbing the small fleece bunched against the wall instead. Their legs tangled together along with their hands against his clammy skin and she sighed into his shoulder. “Will you sleep with me, at least? You could use rest.” 

“I want to love them,” he said against her knuckles. “To get along.” His voice was miles away even when she pressed her face into the crook of his neck. Distant, reserved, chilling as he squeezed her hand tighter. “I want peace.”

“We could have it,” she said softly. “Stay?”

“I can’t,” he said, and that was what broke them. He shed the first tear, wetting Sakura’s knuckles with it and drawing out her own. “One way or the other I need to make a decision and this isn’t how I wanted to spend my final days, breaking down in the arms of someone I’ve avoided...loving.” 

“Itachi, you barely know me,” she said. The fluttering in her chest was shoved aside and replaced by sanity as her nose pressed to the back of his head. “Can you say you love me if you’ve barely spoken to me?”

“I didn’t say I loved you.”

She curled her fingers around the corner of her pillow to fend off a sob. “Sorry, I just--”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t.” Itachi tentatively reached up to take her other hand, clutching harder when she sniffed. “At some point.”

“You come in wanting me to hold you, then admit that,” she said. “What game are you playing?”

He let her go for that. “Forget it,” he said. “I won’t be around long enough to make good on it anyway. I’ll be going now.” His body jerked as he grabbed his clothes from the floor, and she grabbed his wrist. “I said I’ll be going.”

“I just want an answer. What did you expect to happen when you came here tonight?” She let him go when he pulled. No point in keeping someone who didn’t actually want to be here, she supposed. “Why’d you say it?”

“Because,” he whispered as he stood in her doorway. “I am--well, I  _ was-- _ looking for a reason to say no.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think? Feedback is _always_ appreciated and encouraged, be it via kudos/comments/bookmarks or through any of my social media below.
> 
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